Title: Stockboy Nation
Author: Thomas Duffy
Publisher: Amazon.com Services
ISBN: 979-8650072775
Pages: 261
Genre: Mainstream Fiction
Reviewed by: Jake Bishop

Read Book Review

Life can be a funny thing. You can live it for a long time and never really know if it’s the kind of life you want, or simply the kind of life you have, or maybe just the momentary life that’s leading to whatever the next life is that you’re going to lead. At least that’s the situation that Thomas Duffy’s protagonist, Philip, finds himself in within the pages of Stockboy Nation.

Philip is in his mid-forties. He’s gone to college, worked for a while in retail in New York. He’s even written a couple of books. One was relatively successful, the other wasn’t. He now finds himself on the opposite side of the country in San Diego living with Melissa. She’s working, he isn’t, and she’s getting a little tired of that. In fact, she’s convinced that Philip ought to be pulling a lot more of his weight.  So, Philip decides to abandon his literary life and goes back to basically being a stock boy with the same retail organization he worked with in New York.

As his relationship with Melissa deteriorates, he meets LeAnn, a teacher who seems to see things in Philip that he doesn’t necessarily see in himself.  If fact, Philip’s self-examination becomes so perplexed that he decides to leave San Diego, return to New York and see if he can somehow jumpstart a new life out of the old life he used to live. That doesn’t exactly work out the way he had hoped as he happens to return to New York just in time for the Covid-19 pandemic that throws all New Yorkers’ lives into more flux than they’ve ever known before. Soon, Philip is back on the road to San Diego and still trying to figure out whether he’s meant to have a life with Melissa, LeAnn, or no one at all.

Author Duffy tells Philip’s story straightforwardly. Most of what passes for action is found in the dialogue exchanges between Philip and the two most prominent women in his life. The writer also generates additional interest by creating characters which flow in and out of Philip’s world. One of the most memorable is an associate referred to as The Candy Man. His most remarkable feature is that he seems capable of seducing virtually any and all of his female coworkers in little to no time at all—both on premises and off.

More character study than plot based, this novel delves into choices we all have to make by exploring the choices Philip does or doesn’t make. Eventually he has to decide if he’s going to be forever a loner or if Melissa or LeAnn are destined to be ongoing parts of his life. What’s his decision? To find out, read Stockboy Nation.